1201 North Market Street Building

skyscraper
modern
DE
Wilmington

About the 1201 North Market Street Building in Wilmington
Architect and team
Architectural style
Spaces and uses
Structure and materials

The 1201 North Market Street Building is a Modern Style skyscraper designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and built in 1988 in Wilmington, DE.

1201 North Market Street Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The 1201 North Market Street Building is also known, or has been known as, Chase Manhattan Centre, Manufacturers Hanover Plaza, or Chemical Bank Plaza.

Its precise street address is 1201 North Market Street, Wilmington, DE. You can also find it on the map here.

Architect and team

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

Commonly known as SOM, the firm was founded in Chicago in 1936 and has grown to be one of the largest architecture firms in the world.

Even long after its founders passed away, SOM has remained at the top of worldwide architectural excellence by attracting visionary architects. Amongst their most notorious partners we find names such as Gordon Bunshaft, Bruce Graham, Walter Netsch, Adrian Smith, Myron Goldsmith or David Childs.

SOM has also managed to grow and evolve to tackle the architectural challenges of each time, whatever those might be, and today is committed to aspects as important as efficiency and sustainability, as core values of their designs.

With a legacy spanning decades, SOM continues to shape the skylines of cities around the world, and is a usual contestant in any competition or selection process to design large-scale or iconic buildings and structures.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the 1201 North Market Street Building a reality:

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in charge of Structural Engineering
Turner Construction Company as the Main Contractor

Architectural Style

The 1201 North Market Street Building can be categorized as a Modern Style building.

The modern style, also referred to as Modernism in the U.S. (distinct from the European Modernist movement), is characterized by minimal ornamentation, clean lines, and the use of materials such as glass, steel, and concrete. This style prioritizes functionality and the honest expression of materials and structure.

Modern architecture in the U.S. follows many principles of the International Style but with slightly less rigid rules than those of the purist European International Stylists like Le Corbusier, or even those who imported the style to the U.S. like Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.

Modern skyscrapers often feature expansive glass curtain walls, open floor plans, and focus on volume over mass. This blend of innovation and simplicity defined the modern skyscraper, creating the sleek, functional urban landscapes prominent in mid-20th-century U.S. architecture.

The 1201 North Market Street Building was completed in 1988. by then, Modernism had already past its maturity, and other styles, such as Postmodernism or Brutalism were already challenging its principles.

By their own nature, the Modern and International Styles can still look current, even in contemporary buildings. So that's not to say the 1201 North Market Street Building appeared old or outdated when it was completed, but Skidmore, Owings & Merrill certainly did not take many risks when it came to choosing the design style. This made the building look more "classic" and integrated within the city's architecture.

Spaces & Uses

The 1201 North Market Street Building reaches an architectural height of 361ft (110m). It has a total of 27 floors, 23 above ground and 4 basements, served by 12 elevators, which combined offer a total of 106,197 sqf (9,866m²) of usable space.

In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 475 spots available, which roughly equals 21 spots per floor (above ground), or one parking spot per every 226 sqf (21m²) of usable space.

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1988, the 1201 North Market Street Building has mainly been used as Commercial space.

Materials & Structure

The 1201 North Market Street Building uses a framed tube-in-tube structure , with steel columns and concrete and steel slabs.

A framed tube-in-tube structure uses a central core, known as inner tube, which usually holds stairs, lifts and installations, and a perimeter of columns around it, which form the exterior tube. The interior tube is tipically more massive (often made of reinforced concrete), and the exterior tube is "lighter" (made of steel or concrete columns). Both tubes are conencted via horizontal elements which make up the floors and also transmit any horizontal froces from the facade to the core.

The facade employs a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame at the edges of the floor slabs. The perimeter columns are set back slightly from the facade, allowing them to remain independent of the curtain wall system.

This configuration enables a completely free design of the curtain wall, unencumbered by structural elements, thus providing greater flexibility in aesthetic choices and maximizing the visual impact of the exterior.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features slightly blue-tinted glass windows organized in bays by vertical stripes of clear-colored stone. The space occupied by each floor's slab and the false ceiling below are also clad in light-colored stone from the outside. These sections have a horizontal striped textured pattern.

A glazed semi-octagonal volume, located at the center of the main facade, protrudes and extends almost to the building's stepped crown. This volume stands out for its bluish glass panels.

The base of the building has a stepped design, with setbacks at the corners and lower volumes that accompany the main entrance.

Sources

www.skyscrapercentre.com
www.loopnet.com
www.gbig.org